


love of my life (don’t leave me)

by NekoAisu



Series: Wondrous Tails 2020 [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Other, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Pining, Wondrous Tails of Final Fantasy XIV (Tumblr Challenge)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23366836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/NekoAisu
Summary: Emet-Selch is reminded of how inherently flawed the Sundered are.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Warrior of Light, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Original Character(s), Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Series: Wondrous Tails 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659850
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	love of my life (don’t leave me)

**Author's Note:**

> For SFW prompts Trauma and Free Space (Scars)

Emet-Selch is of the opinion that some needs are worse than the most depraved of wants. His least favorite of all being that of love. He asks the vaunted Warrior of Light a very indulgent question, “If you could have anything, anything at all, what would it be?”

He knows the answer will be something like his downfall, or perhaps a good  _ long  _ rest. There is no doubt in his mind that the diminutive imitation standing before him will answer as expected. 

“M’ mem’ries,” the adventurer replies, furred ears flicking in agitation. There is a very clear tell to his anxiety that manifests in the thumping of his tail against the floor. 

He fears it. 

_ What a paradox,  _ Emet-Selch is inclined to think,  _ to have a want so soothing and unknown.  _ He simply nods, striding along the pavement in his playhouse recreation of Amaurot, and wonders if he could perhaps provide that which he is seeking. 

Memories of Amaurot would be easy to spin from the aether of his soul. There is an intrinsic voice that snaps at the name he bears—he is not  _ Fahmi.  _ That is not who he is. He is the Fourteenth, something so much  _ better  _ than this paltry mortal form—and calls in tongues,  _ “Seek me out, that you may Know. You are more than can be explained through word alone.” _

Emet-Selch could grant his wish. He could give over the secret of their shared affection, the soft, ever-present twining of souls, the recollection of Amaurot as it truly was—he could give  _ everything.  _

But then Fahmi looks at him, boot heels clicking against grey stone without any hint of urgency, and says, “I wan’to remember what Ahir says I f’rgot. The stuff Myirea says is… too precious, t’ tell me. To r’peat.”

“So you feel the need for nothing else, is it?”

“Is there somethin’ else?”

Emet-Selch is reminded of how inherently flawed the Sundered are. Of  _ course  _ he isn’t concerned about the centuries he has forgotten. Of  _ course _ he cares more for others of his caliber than his own (past) kind. 

Of course… he cares not for the love they used to share. Fahmi is not Psyche. He is not Amaurotine, not of Zodiark, not  _ eternal. _

_ How far I’ve fallen, to be looking for them within him.  _

They walk together. Quiet. Pensive. Fahmi keeps rubbing at his eyes (or, well, the bandages wrapped around his head. It is a wonder he hasn’t tripped yet) and Emet-Selch knows why. 

The Light is eating at him. It has been for some time. There are portions of his robes where it shows through, a captive star burning in his heart of hearts and spilling out through scar tissue like makeshift window panes. 

There is a bright, nearly immutable spill of golden aether from shoulder to hip. It seeps through his robes like his chest was replaced with a ceruleum engine—blinding where it can be seen peeking from below hems, crackling and screeching where it riots within his soul, clawing its way out of him in streams of radical light—but it is also terribly quiet. Emet-Selch expected something like screaming, maybe a little bit of groaning and moaning, or even a good old fashioned sobfest. He gets a very quiet sense of mourning, instead. 

The scars on Fahmi’s hands glow faintly. He twists a ring around on his finger and seems very much at peace. Well, as at peace as he could be while taking a leisurely walk with the same man he considers the enemy of all current life.

His nonchalance is very nostalgic. Psyche was much the same. 

They had walked here before, at the crossing of 78th and 29th. Psyche had been clamoring and skipping along, robes billowing and showing off their uncovered ankles (not that they cared about things like propriety and decency) and Emet-Selch had been Hades. He can vaguely remember how they said his name, all emphasis on the  _ A  _ and a too soft  _ E.  _

_ “I am irreplaceable! A treasure! The best thing to ever happen to this city! Tell me, Hades, what am I to you?” _

He wonders if they would laugh at him now that he finally has an answer to their question. 

But they are not there with him. They are not  _ anywhere.  _ Hydaelyn took so much from him, nearly the  _ least  _ of all his grievances being _ them,  _ and he is on his way to rectifying it. 

In the meantime, though, he would offer a kindness to the piece of the person he used to know. 

Offering a hand, he asks, “Would you like to see what you lack, hero? There is much you do not yet know.”

Fahmi looks at him, barely over five fulms tall and somehow just as painfully compassionate as Psyche had been, and says not at all harshly, “You… aren’t lookin’ at me. You’re lookin’ f’r someone else.”

“Maybe so, but my offer still stands.”

“I—“ he starts, tail flicking in agitation— “wan’ t’know. Show me Amaurot?”

And Emet-Selch does, though it pains him. He can see Fahmi’s soul fracture the longer he holds out against the Light. He wonders if perhaps Psyche intended their creations to do that to a person. 

To force their very essence to stagnate. 

He wonders, distantly this time, if perhaps they are waiting for him within the Lifestream. Fahmi looks at him, beaten down and long since blinded, and says, “I remember you, Emet-Selch, the Architect, Psyche’s Hades.”

And the hole within his chest only seems to ache impossibly more at the sound of his name being called once again. The accent is wrong, as is the person saying it, but… perhaps he can allow himself to rest. Just for a little while. 

Psyche is reaching for him, after all. He should return soon… to their arms… 

**Author's Note:**

> This got rambly but yea i love amaurotine wols


End file.
